How Times Have Changed

Wow. That's all I can say: Wow.

My old friend Jeremy, he of the website that was a friendly companion to montrealfood.com back in the old days, has really taken things to the next level, on all fronts.

Jeremy is a good guy and an amazing professor at McGill -- I remember he was doing some really groundbreaking stuff back in the 90s -- and we met naturally, because I emailed him to congratulate him on his website, which I consulted frequently while running montrealfood.com.

We went out to diner a few times (Indian, both our favourites) and we had some great conversations. It turned out at the time that he was running a small website called untied.com, which was a response to some bad service from United Airlines. I was impressed with his tenacity, especially when I saw that he'd taken up a similar beef with the owners of Kaizen, a sushi place which I must say I've always hated (then and more so, now, since I had the occasion to go back this January -- my God, it was unholy-awful, with them trying to granolify the sushi experience (whole wheat sushi, anyone) and the thing was, Jeremy just wouldn't let go -- way past the point where I would have just thrown up my hands and muttered "Fucking assholes!" Jeremy stuck with it.

Especially with the United beef. I just looked because I'd run across a mention of his site, and was freaked out that it had gone to the level it has! It's drawing major media attention, and a couple of lawsuits.

Well, I gotta say I never would have taken it that far, but Jeremy is, if nothing else, a man of principles. He won't let you squirm out of an uncomfortable situation, that's for sure!

But what it also brought home to me was something I'd not noticed recently -- a seeming low-grade war between passengers and associates with airlines (be they crew, or federal marshals) about petty stuff like taking photos aboard airplanes and ignoring stupid rules like, for example, forbidding economy passengers from even taking a step into business class while on board.

It seems that while i haven't been flying, these things have really escalated. In the old days, it was conventional wisdom that you never said the word "bomb" in any context at any time, after having passed through the entry doors to an airport -- that goes all the way back to the 70s -- but now all sorts of words are verboten. God forbid you say the word "terrorist" to a crew member -- it's the pokey for you when the plane lands, that's for sure.

But then you get all the confrontational "Don't touch my junk"-type passengers who just seem to delight in provoking these people, and what ends up is literally, a silent war. A war, mind you, with no or completely arbitrary rules.

Is that what it's come to? No photographs on airplanes? Jeez. I LOVE documenting my trips, with video AND photos. Should I cease and desist from now on?

Good old Jeremy. Still with it, after all this time! But now I'm getting increasingly nervous about my upcoming summer trip to Japan . . .